Somewhere in the South

This work from the latter period of Olev Subbi’s creative career combines several motifs and topics that were significant for the artist. The main focus is on abstractionism, which entered Subbi’s oeuvre in the 1980s. He was intrigued by the possibility to apply paints to a picture without attaching any concrete information to them. We can see colours being combined into abstract geometrical forms but the way they are aligned to create a rhythm is purely compositional, not literary.

In addition, Subbi has included two urban motifs in the background. Urban motifs entered his oeuvre in the 1970s, these were often imaginary cityscapes inspired by impressions from his travels. Later he continued painting cityscapes without modelling them after any concrete cities but rather constructing them on the basis of his own emotional impressions. In the top right corner of the painting there is a southern fantasy city, a recurrent motif in works created in the 1990s and 2000s.

On the left side, however, is an unmistakably Estonian urban landscape rendered in darker colours, to which Subbi has also added a significant landmark: a church steeple. Subbi considered church steeples visible in the distance to be particularly characteristic of Estonian landscapes, and he used that motif in a number of his works.

In the background, Subbi has used the composition principle of dividing the painting into two: one side depicts a dreamy fantasy city in light and warm colours, the other side represents his homeland in darker and more intimate shades.